


The Song Remains the Same

by Talullah



Category: Song of the Sea (2014)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/pseuds/Talullah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saoirse goes back to where she once lived.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Song Remains the Same

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Koraki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Koraki/gifts).



> Title from the Led Zeppelin song.
> 
> Written for Koraki, for [Yuletide Treasure 2015](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/yuletide2015).
> 
> Dear Koraki,
> 
> I am sorry this work will not be properly betaed by the time the archive opens. I kept adding to it to the last minute. I also loved this movie very much and I hope you will like the story.
> 
> Happy Christmas
> 
> ETA: It is now betaed. Many thanks to the lovely Elfscribe.
> 
> [Disclaimer/Blanket Statement](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Talullah/profile)

“Silly things, the selkies,” Bébinn thinks, as she rises to the surface. She leans against the rock, hidden from view and watches the girl chasing after her brother on the sandy beach. They play this game every day, save for when it rains. Humans don’t understand the rain and stay inside. It rains profusely in the cold months and often Bébinn returns to the pod with no news for Bronagh. Bronagh then looks at her with those human eyes of hers and Bébinn wonders if she has done something wrong.

Today, it is sunny, though, and Bronagh’s children play, drawing figures in the sand by dragging their feet and branches. The dog, Cú, stops for a moment and barks at her. He can always feel her presence, with a sort of resentment. Amused, Bébinn almost barks back. She resists the impulse, though. Once, not long after the girl, Saoirse, chose to be human, Bébinn and a few other sisters from her pod came to watch her, as they had always done. The girl had called for her mother and tried to enter the icy water with no skin to protect her. After a forced saving by her father, she had cried inconsolably in her brother’s arms for a long time. It had been an ugly thing to watch. A pup without its mother can never be right. After that, the others had stayed away and only Bébinn came, hidden, to watch Bronagh’s children grow in her absence.

She had trouble understanding what Bronagh said about hurting too much to see them. She had trouble understanding just about everything about Bronagh, but the many seasons of their friendship, going all the way back to their pup years, stopped her from judging.

Bébinn noticed the child had stopped running and stared at her rock. It was funny. The child was no longer selkie, but it could still feel things that were not natural for a human child. Bébinn sunk down and swam away. She would only tell Bronagh her boy and her girl were fine, that they played together and looked happy. Saoirse was free from all the sorrow of her mother’s choice.

* * *

“Miss! Miss!” the foreman called, awakening Saoirse from her thoughts. “The building yard is full but the contractor keeps bringing more gravel trucks. What should we do?”

Saoirse lifted her eyes from the blueprints, sighed, and rose to follow the man outside the small office they had improvised in an empty shipping container.

“See? There it is,” the man said, as if it was not obvious enough. “I overheard at the pub that Hannigan is doing this because he needs his own yard freed for a bigger fish – he’s getting the airport contract, apparently.”

Saoirse had studied engineering because she loved lighthouses and seaports and holy wells and magical haven roundabouts. She thought she would love to learn how to build and repair such things and many others. She also thought she was crazy or that she must have been really sick at some point in her childhood because she remembered things that were… well, loopy. But ever since she had started working on the enlargement of the small ferry port that lead to the islet she had grown up in… well, she just kept dreaming of strange things, like menacing owls and seals that talked with her in a way she understood, and magical coats. There was this melody ringing inside her ears, ceaselessly… She told herself it was just stress. It the first big contract where she was the main engineer and it was going very badly, with no small due to Hannigan, but also because the men would rather have their old boss, who had been forcibly retired after a few questionable, but rather unprovable contracts. Now, in addition to building things, she had to be a lawyer, a manager and even psychologist sometimes. Things just kept going south.

She filled her lungs and marched on, waving her hands as expressively as she could at the truck driver.

“I am just following orders from my employer, miss,” he said, peering out the window when she stopped in front of the truck with her hands on her waist.

She held up a piece of paper. “This is the contracted delivery plan. I cannot allow you to deliver any more material ahead of schedule. I will not jeopardize my men or the quality and quantity of the material by accepting more than what we can use right now.”

“Sorry, miss. Mr. Hannigan gave me my orders.” 

“And I am telling you to go back. I will deal with Mr. Hannigan myself.”

“Miss, I might get fired.”

Saoirse inhaled deeply and mentally counted to four, before her foreman intervened. “Bullshit, Rob, you won’t get fired. Stop bullying the missy. Off you go.”

As she watched the truck back out of the building yard, she felt her cheeks burning hot. The foreman had only tried to help but she had her own voice and she could have made the man back down by herself.

Later, after a lonely kidney pie at the pub, she walked to the house the company had rented for her. She planned to shower and go straight to bed but there was an unanswered call in her phone. Ben. She dialed her brother.

“Sis, how are you?” Ben cheerfully answered at the first ring.

Saoirse sighed.

“That bad, huh?” Ben joked.

“Worse. There’s a polar front coming in, so says the weather forecast. It’s frigging May, ferchristsake. I’m starting to think that I’ll never finish this…”

“Things still hot with that Hannigan?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I was thinking on coming down this weekend… I kind of miss that place.”

“You couldn’t get away soon enough,” Saoirse replied.

“Call it nostalgia. I loved it when we were little, you know that. It’s just after… hey, you went away too.”

“Do you have to be so defensive?”

Ben snorted. “Peace. So, do you have a couch?”

“Yes. The house I’m staying in actually has two bedrooms.”

“Fancy!” Ben teased.

Saoirse ignored him. “Bring Cú II, okay?”

“I will. Hey, did I ever tell you the one about the frog and the engineer?”

Saoirse let out an exaggerated sigh. “Yes, multiple times.”

“Love you, sis.”

“Thank you.”

Ben laughed. “For a girl that didn’t talk until she was six you sure found a sharp tongue for yerself.”

* * *

Aimee Brennan had felt a chill run down her back the first time she saw the woman coming into her pub. For a moment, she had been confused. There was a mixture of familiarity and impossibility. The woman was her mother’s spitting image, but it had been a long time since she had last seen Bronagh. People said things at the time of her disappearance. At first, they had not even noticed it. Bronagh had stopped coming to town right after marrying the lighthouse keeper and she had not made many friends before, who could visit and detect her absence.

Some said she had taken off with a travelling salesman. Others said that the husband, Conor, had killed her. Others said she was still there, at the islet, locked away at the top floor of the lighthouse, wailing on the windy nights, deranged out of her mind. Aimee thought that was quite Bronte-esque and all. The old man Sullivan swore she was a selkie who had returned to her selkie husband in the sea. The old Sullivan was known to love his pints, though. Sometimes, in his cups, he also saw angels and UFOs. 

Actually, Aimee’s favourite theory was related to UFOs, but it had been Tommy McNeal to suggest that the lighthouse keeper’s wife had been kidnapped by aliens. That was before, of course, they had started him on the lithium. Ferry Dan swore she was buried in the strip of sand at the base of the islet. There was this mound where the children played that was suspicious. What no one believed was that Bronagh had drowned, as Conor had said.

Aimee had not seen the children for a long while. The family had moved when the girl was around ten, perhaps. They said that Conor had not been able to live with the sorrow about his wife’s disappearance. Others said it was the guilt. Others talked about a new woman, another dark-haired beauty. There were all kinds of rumours when people got together drinking at her pub, which was almost every night.

When the construction people who were going to work at the port started arriving, no one was expecting that particular surprise, though. A woman engineer, and more – a daughter of the town. Aimee Brennan watched as the woman’s lips moved, ordering food and drink, but it took her a moment to process the sounds.

The woman, in her late twenties and every bit as beautiful as her mother, ate in silence at the counter. The pub was unusually silent too, until Tommy turned on the telly for the game. At the end, when she was paying, Saoirse smiled timidly.

“I used to come here as a child, sometimes, with my father,” she said. “You always gave me and my brother an American peppermint candy.”

Aimee smiled. “Ooh, my brother used to send me those. Now it’s easy to find them. I thought you were Conor’s girl, I did. How is your father, missy?”

“He is fine, thank you, Mrs. Brennan.”

Aimee smiled, pleased that Saoirse remembered her name. She recalled that, for a while, Saoirse had not talked. There were also abundant theories about that. She had a beautiful speaking voice, though, very musical and almost bewitching.

“Come back tomorrow, love. I will make you something special.”

* * *

Bronagh was unsure of herself as she walked into the pub. Many heads turned to watch her. She wondered if she had done something wrong – was her dress in disarray, somehow? Was her walking too gangly? It had been a long time since she had been on land for this long. Her mother had taught her English and Gaelic, but not how to read. Many things had changed since she was little. The lights were brighter. The noise. So many cars… but there was an imperative need burgeoning inside her.

Bébinn had begged her not to come and Bronagh had tried to listen. She loved being a seal, even if she often felt like an outsider among the other pups. A loved, cherished outsider, but nevertheless, someone who was not quite the same. The otherness made her a little sad, but her mother told her it was the fate of the selkie.

Though she loved the sea, it was not safe. There were orcas and motorboats and nets to be tangled in. But water was her element, not earth and air. When she was little, right after she and her mother had left her father, she would now and then take off her coat and walk on the beach. The one time she had been careless, her mother had caught her. She was having so much fun playing with a stray dog on a sandy strip that she did not notice the tide was ebbing away and dragging her coat out to sea. She would have never been able to swim far enough to retrieve it as a human child, not in that cold water and with the strong current.

After that, she only went on land when her mother thought it was time for her to prepare. Those were not her happiest hours. To prepare. Dreaded words. Bébinn always commiserated with her when one of those ‘to prepare’ expeditions were announced. They would go off on their own and hunt for herrings on the south side of the bay. It was strictly forbidden, because fishermen hated that and sometimes attacked the seals. But it was a delicious treat and the water there smelled differently, almost in a sweet way.

So, one day, her mother had gone. No notice, no words of farewell, nothing. Bronagh cried and cried, called at the harbor, wondering if, by any chance her mother had gotten another seven years. But if her mother was on land, she did not hear her seal daughter’s voice. Later, Dubhán had brought her the white coat, torn to shreds. It smelled of orca and blood.

Selkies take a long time to mature. She was still considered a youngling when Bébinn found a mate. She was a little jealous of all the attention Bébinn spared Dubhán, but she loved their first pup and spent hours playing with her.

It was about then that she started hearing the Song. Her mother had taught her that song, how to sing it, how to play it in the shell. She said she would understand, one day. Bronagh was not a sweet young pup anymore and she felt hot surges of anger at her mother for disappearing, for not telling her more. She was never going to be like her. She was going to always be a seal, have her pups in the sea, die as a seal.

And now, here she was, walking into a pub, wearing a dress that she had pilfered from a drying line and some old shoes a lady had given her. And her white coat. The music brought her here to these smells and sounds so foreign, yet so close. She started remembering things she had long overlooked. Her father, a big man who carried her on top of his shoulder and made her laugh and wiggle. Money. Her father had given her coins to buy pastries, she remembered now. She had no money. And everyone was still looking at her.

Bronagh hesitated by the counter but she did not sit down. This had been a mistake. She knew nothing about being human. Why had that hypnotic music carried her here? She hastened to the door, almost running, but a man came out of a door she had not noticed and she smashed into him.

“Hello,” the man said. “Are you alright?”

Bronagh nodded. It was as if her voice had been lost, held down in a chocking knot. The man stared at her too, silently, his lips slightly parted. He was handsome, tall, strong, square shoulders, golden haired. His eyes seemed to burn her skin; his hands, still holding her arms, spread warmth throughout her body. She felt things unfolding, awakening inside her. She remembered the old stories Bébinn’s mother told the pups of the pod, about how dangerous and seductive humans could be and how unfortunate the selkies were to be at the mercy of such dangerous beings. But she felt no fear in this man’s hands.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” the man said, after a moment. “Here, let me buy you a pint to make it up to you.”

Bronagh nodded and followed him to the back of the pub where they sat at the last table. Everyone still had their eyes on them.

“I’m Conor,” the man said. “And this here, is Cú.”

Bronagh looked down and realized there was a dog lying quietly underneath the table. Later, Conor would tell her that it had been in that moment, when he had seen her face open up in the widest smile of pure joy, gazing at Cú, that he had fallen for her, but she knew that it had been before, right outside the men’s room, when they had stumbled into one another that it had happened.

She had not wanted this for herself, no. But she was going to be different from her mother and from all the other selkies. Her heart would not be broken nor would she break anyone’s heart. She would only stay a little while, conceive a child, as required of her, and return to the sea. But Conor was sweet and gentle, and there was something wounded behind his eyes. When she realized that the Song had stopped, she knew she was free to return to the sea. A new life rose within her. But on the day she was silently saying her farewell to the house, Conor told her she had a special glow about her. He had kissed her, deep and long, and things had been as they should be. 

When the boy was born, she knew he was not selkie. She started hearing the Song again and she stayed, falling deeper in love with Conor, and loving Ben with so much might she could not fathom ever leaving him. Surely, there would be a way, once the seven years were over. She waited, her heart growing heavier as the years flew by and the Song became stronger. Macha heard it too, she was sure. On many dark nights she heard the owls hooting. She was frightened but she kept her fear away, tucked down somewhere inside. She only let joy shine through for her Ben.

One Christmas, when Conor had a rare leave, they went to his mother’s to celebrate. Bronagh did not enjoy being so far away from the water, but it was needed, to appease the old lady, who had never forgotten her first daughter-in-law and how perfect she had been for Conor. She was shopping when she noticed the glow across the street, in the bushes of a park. She followed it, oblivious to the honking cars and cursing drivers and found, inside the hedgerow, two of the Sidhe folk. Around them, many stones lay.

“You hear the song,” one of them said.

“Of course she hears the song, dummy,” the other replied. “Look at her coat!”

“Ah! Of course. I see…” The older one twisted his long beard pensively. “You are here to break the curse, then?”

“The curse?” Bronagh asked.

The Sidhe looked at one another. For a minute, they debated hot and fast in a language that sounded like Gaelic, but that Bronagh could not understand. When she moved to sit on a rock, the older one stopped her.

“No! Don’t sit there, that’s Balor!”

Bronagh looked at the moss-covered rock. Suddenly, she could almost see a face in it.

“She really does not know a thing,” the older one said to the other. 

“We should tell her, then.”

The three of them sat on the cold ground.

“Once, there was a giant…” the older one started.

By the time they had finished telling her the story, Bronagh was terrified.

“No, this cannot all be true,” she said. “And if this Macha is so powerful, how come I have never heard of her?”

“Why your mother did not tell you of your fate, we cannot say.”

“She did tell me never to play the shell unless I was completely alone and in a closed room. She said that the music would nurture me and mine but that it was also dangerous.”

“I suppose she was trying to protect you, but maybe it is the fate of us all to perish,” the younger one said.

“Just tell me what to do, how to fight this Macha, and I will do it!” Bronagh replied, rising to her feet. 

“Her power is too great. You cannot do it.”

“I must protect my child.”

“Oh, you have a child?”

“Yes, a little boy.”

“And is he…”

“No,” Bronagh shook her head. “He is not selkie. But if anything should happen to me, if these owls came hunting me down, he’d be left alone with his father, mourning me.”

“Everyone who has tried to face Macha has failed and she has grown stronger with their magic. Perhaps it is better if you stay hidden, like your mother wanted,” the older one suggested.

“Have you ever met another selkie?” the younger Sidhe suddenly asked.

“No,” Bronagh admitted. “I have searched and called, but no. Neither has anyone in my pod.”

“I suspect you are the last one of your kind. We are all fading, turning to stone under her spell.”

“Do you think she… my mother… do you think…” Bronagh found a tightness in her chest that made breathing next to impossible.

“Perhaps. We might never know the answer to that. But trust us, do not seek Macha. And, if you have another child, a selkie child in your remaining years, do not let her hear the music or play the shell.”

“The seven years,” she started.

As if reading her mind, the older Sidhe replied, “Some rules cannot be broken.”

Bronagh left in silence, with a heavy heart, and remained that way for the rest of Christmas. It was a relief that Ben was not selkie… but what she had not told the Sidhe at the hedgerow, was that she was pregnant.

Back at the islet, she took her time, thinking, pondering. Conor often asked her what was the matter. He would never believe her. He would try to protect them, her, Ben, the unborn child and it would only be worse. And time kept running fast, so fast toward the end of her seven years. Why had she followed that song?

She now felt the tug of the sea just as before she had felt the land’s. Her heart was broken, but for Ben’s sake, she only let love shine through. Love, and many, many stories, all that he needed to know, if ever the time came. If she was lucky enough, her child and his unborn sister would never, ever think those were more than fairytales.

One night, though, she decided to tell Conor the truth, or rather show him. She now knew that the baby was selkie. She would return to the sea, but not the child. If the child never wore her coat, she would never know a thing. She would just be mute, a child maybe a little fey, but normal enough, and safe enough.

“I have known it for a while,” was all that Conor said, when she came out of the water.

Bronagh with a giant belly, naked and dripping, stood in the surf, looking at him.

“I thought it was funny that you never spoke when we were naked,” Conor said. “And that you would get up in the middle of the night so often. I watched you from the window,” he added sheepishly.

Bronagh put on her coat. “So you knew?”

“I thought I had gone crazy. Imagining things, you know. Maybe I am.”

Bronagh took his hand. “Do you know the legends?”

“That selkies go back to their seal husbands?”

“I don’t have another husband,” Bronagh said.

“Then you will stay.”

“I can’t. The sea is calling. My seven years are coming to their end.” She started walking up the path that led home.

“Wait!” Conor said. “I have never heard about any seven years.”

“It is the rule of the selkies. We can be fully human only for seven years. And even so, we cannot roam too far away from the sea.”

Conor took her hand and pulled her to his chest. “Are you sure? How long had your time started when we met?” 

Bronagh could see him doing the math. “It was just at that moment, when we met.”

“You will have time to give birth. This is crazy. I can’t believe we are talking about this. Maybe it is all in my head and I have never met you.”

“I am real,” Bronagh said, crying.

“Shh, don’t cry. We’ll figure something out.”

Bronagh let him lead her home, feeling in her bones that there was no hope. A few nights later, she gave Ben the shell. Perhaps she should destroy it, but something held her back. It had been her mother’s last gift. Just before her sweet boy fell asleep, she whispered in his ear, “This is for you only. Never share it with the baby.”

* * *

“Mrs. Brennan,” Saoirse greeted as she entered the pub. “This is my brother, Ben. Remember him?”

“Ben!” Aimee cheerfully greeted him. “Of course I remember. You always came with your dad.”

“I remember,” Ben said. “It was such an adventure coming to the village. I loved your rashers.”

“I’ll cook you some right away, love.”

“Oh, later, please, Mrs. Brennan,” Saoirse said. “We would like to go to the islet before lunch. We are trying to find a ferry.”

“Ooh, child, there’s no ferry now that the lighthouse is fully automated.”

“Is there anyone who could take us there? We could pay well,” Ben said.

Aimee Brennan thought for a minute before replying. “Well, child, the weather is getting rough but Ferry Dan’s son might do it. He has one of those little inflatable rubber boats for fishing but the motor is quite powerful, they say…”

Saoirse and Ben followed her instructions and found Dan O’Malley, the son, sitting at the fishermen’s dock, looking out at the sea.

“My father used to tell all sorts of stories about you folk,” he said, after they had made the deal. He walked ahead, leading them to the boat.

“How is your father?” Ben asked.

“Dead,” Dan replied.

“I’m sorry,” Saoirse said. “He was a kind man, even if he didn’t like Granny.”

“Nobody liked Granny,” Ben joked.

“Ben,” Saoirse scolded, half-heartedly.

“How is your father?” Dan asked, as they hopped into the boat. “It must have been hard for a man first to lose his wife, then his job.”

For a moment, both siblings were quiet, as Ben struggled to get a frightened Cú II in the boat. 

“I think that in the end it was good for him,” Ben eventually said. “They placed him at the Dundalk port. It is not the busiest port of the world, but it was a big change, with all the people and the noise. It kept him busy. He still goes out every day for a drink at the pub with the men who worked with him.”

Dan O’Malley nodded at that and started the boat. As they passed by the sea breaker Saoirse noticed a pod of seals sunbathing on the rocks. One of them, perhaps more curious than the rest, dove into the water and followed them for a long while.

“Here we are,” said Dan, as he hopped out of the boat and dragged it over the surf to the sand.

Saoirse swiftly followed him, not caring about landing in the water. Ben followed gingerly, trying to avoid it. Saoirse laughed when he lost his footing and got wet to his thighs and laughed harder when Cú II shook himself, spraying his owner.

“Look! Remember how we used to play on that rock,” Saoirse said, pointing at the large boulder beneath the cliff.

“I remember,” said Ben, walking to it. He looked up, then at the path that led home. “Everything looks smaller,” he said.

“Come,” Saoirse said, leading him up the path.

When they reached the top of the islet, the lighthouse was locked. They walked around it, peering through the windows. It was empty, save for some machinery at a corner; the floor was dusty and the walls were painted in a white that was running to grey.

“They painted over our drawings,” Saoirse said.

Ben put an arm around her.

They walked around the lighthouse another time, peered down the cliff, tried the door and the windows again. Cú II followed them, sniffing everywhere, barking at the old dog house.

Once more, Saoirse looked inside the window at their room. “I should have imagined that someone would have painted over the drawings, but…”

Heavy raindrops started falling. From bellow, they head Dan O’Malley calling.

“Come, sis, don’t be sad. I’ll paint you new ones,” Ben said.

They ran down the hill, but they were drenched when they reached the boat.

“The weather is rising,” Dan said. “We should go now.”

As they left the islet behind, Saoirse looked at it for a long time. The curious seal was still there, looking into her eyes. She thought she might be imagining things, but Ben whispered in her ear, “I think they still remember us.”

* * *

Bébinn heard, from her eldest son that Bronagh’s children had been at the island. She was surprised that her Dubhán, who had been little when Saoirse and Ben lived at the islet, would still remember, but her pup never forgot a scent.

Bronagh was gone. No one really knew where selkies went. No bodies sank to the bottom of the ocean. They just disappeared, one day. She never met another one of her kind again. Sometimes she missed her friend, but she was old now, too old for a seal and she often felt cold and tired. Perhaps the day she would find out where Bronagh had gone was coming soon. She would move her old bones just one more time to see her children, though.

* * *

Despite the gusts of wind laden with cold rain, Saoirse and Ben headed to the pub instead of the house where Saoirse was staying.

“You are awfully silent,” Ben said, after ordering Mrs. Brennan’s rashers and a pint of cider.

Saoirse shook her head. “It is funny. I had this song stuck in my head and now it is gone.”

Ben looked at her for a moment. Then he hummed a melody he had not thought of in many, many years.

Saoirse looked up, surprised. Ben stopped and bit his thumbnail. .

“Did you hear it too?” Saoirse asked.

“Not in a long time. It was mother’s song, before she… went to the sea.”

Saoirse covered her face with her hands and massaged her forehead. “Drowned, you mean?”

“I think you know what I mean,” Ben said.

Saoirse took several long gulps from her stout. “I think I need to be drunk, to hear this.”

“Father never let us speak of anything. I thought you had forgotten,” Ben said.

“It’s confusing. I remember things that can’t be true.”

Ben sat quietly, just looking at Saoirse.

“Your first paintings, your first exhibition,” Saoirse started.

“Ah, the kitschy folklore pastiche show of childish imagination,” Ben completed.

“Don’t quote that awful man,” Saoirse asked. “The galleries and the buyers don’t give a fig about his opinion.”

“Besides the point. Yes, those paintings were about what you are thinking.”

“Oh,” Saoirse said.

“Oh indeed. I think this ranks pretty high in dirty family secrets.”

Saoirse bit the side of her cheek before replying. “It’s not dirty, per se.”

Ben laughed. “Always the rational one. Do you want to talk about it?”

Saoirse stopped for a long moment. “Maybe tomorrow. Did you ever see Mum again?”

Ben’s smile died. “No. But I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Why did she go?”

“She couldn’t stay.”

“And me?”

“You are just the same as me. You are not going anywhere.” Ben took Saoirse’s hand in his and squeezed hard.

* * *

Aimee Brennan watched the two siblings at the table and smiled. On the few times Conor had brought them to town, it was plain to see that Ben did not like his sister. Then, things had changed, and apparently, they had remained friends. It was good. She made a mental note to call her own sister, in America.

First, though, she would call Hannigan and threaten to collect his tab at the pub, if he did not start making the young missy’s life easier. It was a long tab, even for a man of Hannigan’s means, which were currently reduced, if the word on the street was to be trusted. Besides, it wasn’t really about the tab. Molly Hannigan might not like to know where her husband went when he left the pub. A good pub owner knew many, many things, and she owned a little gratitude debt to Bronagh.

Many years ago, when her name was still Murphy, Aimee, had felt a little crushed whenever she had to serve the handsome, recently arrived (and recently divorced, if rumours were true) lighthouse keeper. Aimee laughed at herself. Conor had not even noticed her in the few months he had lived at the lighthouse before Bronagh had shown up, all bedraggled, but beautiful as the sun. She should hate Bronagh, but because of her, the path had been cleared for James Brennan, who had made her the happiest of women. Aimee picked her cellphone from the counter and selected Hannigan’s number as she walked to the kitchen, for some privacy.

* * *

The pod had not liked the noisy machines and the movement around the port, but the humans had not come close to their rocks and all had been well. The work was done, and the girl would soon be gone, Bébinn thought, as she peered over the water at the lonely, windswept figure that happily grinned at all the cement she had built. She really wished she could tell Bronagh how fine her human children were.

Before she saw it, she felt it – a presence, a familiar, dear presence. She felt coldness at the pit of her stomach. Maybe it was the squid that she had eaten… no, it was a cold almost like fear. She dared not look.

“I heard you calling,” Bronagh whispered.

Bébinn held her breath before answering. “Do you see her?” she asked at last.

“I see her.”

Bébinn almost chocked at the sorrow mixed with pride in her old friend’s voice. “The boy is very fine too.”

“I know,” Bronagh said. “I know.”

Bébinn waited. The two of them remained still in the water, until the girl looked at them. They stared back at her for a long time. Then someone called Saoirse from a car. As her daughter walked to the car, glancing back, Bronagh’s flipper touched Bébinn’s. Only when the car was out of sight did she speak again.

“Time to go, old friend.”

Bébinn dove behind her. She had said her farewells before.

_Finis  
December 2015_


End file.
